The new April 12 date for Brexit was eventually decided in a 10-strong huddle of EU leaders, all desperately thinking of ways to avoid “a trap” laid by Britain.
It was around 9pm on Thursday. The formal session of the Brussels summit had ended after almost five hours of meandering Brexit talks, but dinner was still on hold.
A group stayed behind in the meeting room searching for answers to a vexing political puzzle: how to ensure Britain shouldered full responsibility for the historic decision to leave the union, whatever the date of its actual departure.
Near the centre of the diplomatic scrum stood a jacketless Emmanuel Macron, the French president; to his side Angela Merkel, the German chancellor; and in the background hovered Luxembourg’s prime minister, Xavier Bettel, sporting a cosy grey scarf.
Out of the fast exchange of ideas, dates and complex conditions finally emerged a compromise: delaying Brexit to at least April 12 and using the date as a political “guillotine” for Westminster, when key decisions could not be avoided.
This was alongside the option of a more simple “technical” delay until May 22 to finish the ratification of a Brexit treaty if the House of Commons had backed the deal.
Earlier that evening Theresa May had “spooked” the room, in the words of one diplomat. Her answers left leaders unconvinced that her Brexit deal would be approved in Westminster, or that she had a realistic fallback plan.
Facing more than an hour of questions, the British prime minister “was not able to give clear answers”, concluded one diplomatic note. Making his summit debut, Krisjanis Karins, the Latvian prime minister, summed up the mood by asking Mrs May why she remained “so optimistic” given the circumstances.
Once Mrs May left the room, the frustrations began to spill over. Charles Michel, the Belgian prime minister, said it would be “a miracle” if Mrs May’s deal won a House of Commons majority, adding that it may be better if the UK “just leaves”.
One leader said the British prime minister had in effect “set a trap”, ploughing on with a ratification strategy that was set to fail and make the EU look as if it was calling time on Britain’s membership.
Mr Macron was in turn adamant that EU leaders should not return for a summit next week. If Mrs May lost her vote in the Commons, it would leave the EU taking a crucial decision on extension in a “position of weakness”, with a no-deal exit possibly hours away on March 29.
The French president was so insistent on the need to avoid a summit that Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, jokingly asked if he had planned a holiday that week.
Diplomats had hoped leaders would quickly endorse a counter-offer: a May 22 exit date, on the eve of European Parliament elections, which would be conditional on the House of Commons passing an exit deal next week.
As more and more leaders intervened, it quickly became clear this was not going to be a straightforward summit. Notes of the discussion describe it as “going in all directions”.
Most notably António Costa, the Portuguese prime minister, proposed a radical plan, citing Portugal as the UK’s oldest continental ally. It involved Britain being able to decide to stay in the EU for “as long as the UK deems necessary”, as long as it held European elections in late May.
A surprised participant at the summit speculated that Mr Costa may have been “confused”, having earlier spent time with Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s opposition Labour party.
Various other initiatives, often driven by Mr Macron, threw out a host of other end dates, including May 7, May 9 and June 1.
The French president swung from tough positions — declaring at some points that Britain should leave by April 11 — to surprising some diplomats by dropping previous French demands for strict conditions on any decision.
“I am stoical by nature,” Mr Macron said as he left the summit. “I do everything to be able to control what depends on us. What doesn’t depend on us, doesn’t depend on us.”
Mrs Merkel, meanwhile, adopted a more cautious approach to the decision, counselling against closing off options, given the levels of uncertainty in London. This included the possibility of a long extension, should Britain be ready to ask for one and to hold European elections in May.
Even some authors of the eventual compromise admit it was more “sophisticated” than first planned. But leaders left satisfied that a way had been found to keep all avenues open, protect key EU interests, while putting the onus on Britain to make a choice by April 12.
After the breakthrough in the huddle, Mrs May was called from the nearby UK representation for her third meeting of the day with Donald Tusk, the European Council president. Only once that visit was over — at almost 10pm — could dinner begin.
“Frankly speaking I was really sad before our meeting and now I am much more optimistic,” said Mr Tusk after the summit.
The relief at the outcome came alongside some unmistakable concern among leaders at the chances of actually pulling off a deal. Michel Barnier, the chief Brexit negotiator, told some attendees his central scenario was a no-deal Brexit.
Viktor Orban, the self-styled illiberal Hungarian prime minister, even made a rare intervention on the subject, noting the high probability of a hard exit. Recalling his experience of living in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, he said every Conservative party leader only cared about one thing and that was the Conservative party.
Mrs Merkel followed up to note the serious risks of a no-deal outcome, and the difficulties this would pose for maintaining an open border with Northern Ireland.
She called on Mr Barnier to explore a fallback plan to uphold the Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland, according to diplomatic notes. One EU official said: “Tonight was the first time leaders tried to crystallise what a ‘no deal’ means.”
